Thoughts
by Threni
Summary: After the events of "Ball of Fire" Jane becomes a little more retrospective than usual


**Thoughts**

**I Own Nothing**

**All Rights Reserved**

Grace Van Pelt leaned back in her chair and massaged her temples, relieved that the day was finally over. It had been quite a case. It was always nerve-wracking when trying to save a killer's intended victim, running that dreadful race against Time, where the slightest mistake might have terrible consequences, and when those intended victims happened to be Jane and Lisbon…well, needless to say, she was very glad they had been saved before it was too late.

Her gaze fell upon Jane, who was sitting on his couch sipping yet another cup of tea. She eyed him suspiciously. He appeared perfectly normal. He looked as relaxed and carefree as ever. Earlier he had even been in the mood to banter with Lisbon. The recollection of that made her smile. Yet she knew he could not possibly be alright, for nobody could possibly be alright after being kidnapped and tortured!

"I'm fine, Grace," he said suddenly.

Even after all these years Van Pelt was still amazed at his abilities. "How'd you know what I was thinking about?"

"Well, you were looking at me, and given that you're a warm-hearted person and I'd just come through the Valley of Death, it was a pretty easy assumption," he smiled to soften his words. "You could use some sleep, you know."

"So could you," she replied.

He shrugged. "Meh."

"You do." Van Pelt insisted, "It's almost 10:00!"

"Is it?" he glanced at the bullpen clock but did not move. "Well, I can sleep in tomorrow. Lisbon gave me the day off. Very considerate of her."

Van Pelt could not figure out what to say to that, so she dropped the conversation and started preparing to leave. She was just about to put on her coat when Jane spoke again.

"What's with those filing cabinets?" He gestured to a part of the room where several large filing cabinets sat. "Redecorating the room while I was away?"

"Oh those are your old cases," Van Pelt replied, "we dug them out to see who might want you dead."

"Hope it wasn't a long list," Jane replied, still keeping the levity in his voice, "I don't know how many more near-fatal kidnappings I can handle." He fell silent and became lost in thought for a moment. "So…all of those are cases I've worked on?"

Van Pelt patted one cabinet. "No. This one is. And these," she gestured to the others, "hold all the complaints made against you."

Jane had to laugh as he calculated how many files each cabinet could hold. "Really?"

"Really." She smiled playfully. "Each and every complaint since Day One."

"I wasn't even working for the CBI then," Jane mused.

"You weren't even on the job and people were already complaining about you? Very impressive, Jane." Van Pelt had not been with the CBI then and she had never heard that story in any detail. Not that she had ever really asked, she reminded herself.

"Yes, I suppose it _is_ very impressive. That's a lot of complaints and a lot of cases, isn't it?" He looked thoughtful again. "You know…when you're in a situation when you don't know if your next minute might be your last, it makes you look back a lot,"

"I know," Van Pelt said, suddenly somber.

"I had a few moments like that when I was in that basement," he admitted. His gaze drifted away from Van Pelt as his memory took him back to those moments. "There were times…you look back on your life and wonder what you might have done differently," his eyes suddenly hardened, "Not that those can be changed—they can't or they would've been—but you wonder whether or not, when it's almost over, if you've really amounted to anything; if you've actually accomplished something to be genuinely proud of. And when you can't really think of anything—when all you can recall are the moments you'd like to undo—you wonder what kind of person you truly are and if you're worth enough to deserve to keep living. All those bodies you've seen were people who, as like as not, deserved a long life, so why should you get to live on and they don't? What have you amounted to that justifies your own existence, to yourself if nobody else?"

He stood up and made his way to the filing cabinets. "But right now…well…" he looked down at one cabinet and put a hand on it. "Well, perhaps I do see something to be genuinely proud of, for a change."

Van Pelt watched him, speechless. It was very rare to see him talk in this manner. Abruptly he shrugged and said, "Yeah, well, that's what I thought about earlier. Probably aren't terribly healthy thoughts, but it's what happened." And then he walked out of the room.

It was only then that Van Pelt realized that he had been touching the filing cabinet that held his solved cases, not the ones with the complaints.


End file.
